Rachida Dati’s candidacy in Paris divides the majority and delights the left

Rachida Dati announced on Tuesday that she would be a candidate for mayor of Paris during the 2026 municipal elections.

A minister already in the campaign? Rachida Dati, newly appointed to the Ministry of Culture, announced her candidacy for mayor of Paris on Wednesday January 17. “My goal is Paris. Of course, I will be a candidate. I always said it”, declared the Parisian elected official on RTL. On the side of Emmanuel Macron, the President of the Republic assured, during his press conference on Tuesday, that he had not concluded any “deal” about it with her. Rachida Dati, mayor of the 7th district of the capital, in the campaign while being Minister of Culture: this scenario makes even the majority cringe.

Rachida Dati announced on Wednesday that she was going to resign from the presidency of the LR and related group at the Paris Council, but continues to receive timid support from the Parisian right. A resignation motivated by “concern to devote herself fully to her mission as Minister of Culture and to avoid any division within the group that she has been able to consolidate in three years”, underlines elected official LR Aurélien Véron to AFP. That won’t stop him from “animate” the group “in view of his candidacy to take over Paris town hall in 2026”added this Paris advisor.

The members of Renaissance embarrassed at the surroundings

“Things are strangely handled”, an executive advisor told franceinfo on Wednesday. Teeth are gnashing a little, or even a lot, especially among the historical Renaissance activists in Paris, many of them coming from the left. “What does it mean for him to leave so early? Trouble”, summarizes with flowery words an advisor to the executive. Because in 2020, during the last municipal elections, no agreement was possible between the right and the Macronists. And the troops haven’t changed that much since. “Obviously there is an agreement [avec Emmanuel Macron]”even judged, very “unhappy”a Parisian Macronist deputy to the AFP, rejecting the idea of ​​a rally. “I will never do Rachida Dati’s campaign. There are many of us like that”, he warned. At the same time, others see an opportunistic side in the head of state: “He lets Dati get started, he sees what it gives, if it works he advises, if it burns, LR will not have a candidate.”

At Horizons, an ally of Emmanuel Macron, we also send messages: “Pierre-Yves Bournazel, elected from the 18th arrondissement, will be a very good mayor of Paris”, said Édouard Philippe. A way of warning: no, Rachida Dati minister is not the natural candidate of the Macronist camp.

The Minister of Culture, on the other hand, has two elements of consolation: although she may have been excluded from the LR, she remains supported by her troops in Paris. And second element, the Head of State confirmed on Tuesday that he intended to reform the voting method in Lyon, Marseille, as well as in Paris. This change would allow voters to directly elect their mayor, with the hope on the right and at Renaissance that this voting method would be less favorable to Anne Hidalgo, the current mayor of the capital.

“Dati 2026” does not scare Anne Hidalgo’s camp

For the Parisian left it is “a non-surprise”, proof of “feverility” from Rachida Dati.
“She’s speeding up.” because she loses her footing in her own camp, because she “has difficulty making the link between the Republicans and the majority”, analyzes with franceinfo a close friend of his rival Anne Hidalgo. Around the socialist mayor of Paris, who maintains the vagueness on her desire or not to return to the next municipal elections, we want to display her serenity, even if it means exaggerating it. “It’s a boulevard for us because the center-left electorate will never vote for Rachida Dati”a PS figure in the capital is convinced.

According to this figure, removing from the race a possible Macronist candidate, such as Clément Beaune, who embodied the left, “clears things up. The vote will be between two candidates, the left or the right., if there is indeed an agreement with Renaissance as Rachida Dati herself suggests. These socialists want to believe that in the minds of voters, Rachida Dati is a “symbol of Sarkozy mania, of the bling-bling right”. Better yet, his candidacy “will put us back in a configuration where the left will be desired”.

Rachida Dati’s announcement to be a candidate for mayor of Paris in 2026 made Yannick Jadot jump. For the environmentalist senator, who spoke on LCP, it is “an insult to the world of culture which needs support” as well as a “insult to Parisians”. He claims to have “well understood” as Rachida Dati “was Minister of Culture to obtain the support of the Macronists in the Paris election”.

A new voting method that could change the situation

If the majority manages to change the voting method in the capital, as Emmanuel Macron outlined in his press conference, there is more concern on the left. The municipal majority is agitated, because Emmanuel Macron openly supporting the reform project changes the situation. A press conference is planned for Thursday, January 18 at City Hall, organized at the last minute by the Hidalgo camp. For the supporters of the current mayor, what is at stake is the representation of residents in their diversity. Those who live in the 18th or 20th arrondissement do not have the same problems as those in the 16th, for example. But for the presidential majority, the current voting method gives more weight to the left-wing districts and therefore favors Anne Hidalgo.

The mayor of Paris sees in this reform a desire on the part of the macronie to harm her personally, as she confides to franceinfo. “We don’t settle, she says, political problems with voting methods”.